Japan PM mulls replacing some Cabinet members amid low support rate
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is considering replacing some Cabinet members by the beginning of the regular parliamentary session scheduled to start in January in the hope of reviving his declining support rate, according to government sources.
Reconstruction minister Kenya Akiba, who has been grilled over political funds and other scandals by the opposition bloc, may be sacked by Kishida, the sources said Thursday.
Kishida said he would not be reshuffling his Cabinet anytime soon at a news conference earlier in the month.
But opposition parties are set to resume their offensive against Akiba, a lawmaker of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party led by Kishida, when the Diet session starts next month.
The government aims to pass the fiscal 2023 budget and other key bills but a senior administration official has expressed concern that Akiba’s scandals could disrupt smooth Diet deliberations.
When asked about the impact of the scandals at a press conference on Friday, Akiba said only that he intends to advance policies aimed at reconstructing the northeastern Japan region, which was devastated by the 2011 massive earthquake and ensuing tsunami. Akiba is elected from a constituency in Miyagi, one of the three prefectures hit hard by the disaster.
The minister reportedly paid around 200,000 yen ($1,500) to his state-paid secretaries for helping with his re-election bid in the October 2021 lower house election, an act that could constitute an illegal payment to campaign staff banned under the election law.
Natsuo Yamaguchi, leader of the LDP’s junior coalition partner Komeito, meanwhile, said he has no knowledge of the plan.
“I will leave it to the prime minister,” Yamaguchi said at the prime minister’s office.
The approval ratings for Kishida’s Cabinet have recently been nearing what is widely viewed as the “danger level” of 30 percent, due in part to several scandals involving his ministers, including ties to the controversial Unification Church.
The prime minister is hoping to improve public support ahead of local elections in April by replacing ministers mired in scandals.
Kishida, who represents a constituency in Hiroshima that was destroyed by a U.S. atomic bombing in 1945, is eager to remain at the helm so he can promote his vision of a “world without nuclear weapons” at the Group of Seven summit in the western Japan city scheduled in May, the sources said.
Among other Cabinet members, National Public Safety Commission Chairman Koichi Tani, who doubles as minister for disaster management, may be replaced for health reasons after he was hospitalized earlier this month, though he has already recovered, the source said.
Mio Sugita, a parliamentary vice minister for internal affairs and communications, is set to be sacked for her past discriminatory remarks against sexual-minority couples.
Kishida had considered a broader Cabinet reshuffle, but he abandoned the plan as he found it difficult to select candidates to form a new Cabinet completely free of scandals or relations with the Unification Church, a religious corporation often labeled as a cult, the sources said.
SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES